Thunder Player Power Rankings: Perk rising

The Thunder are 5-0 for the first time ever. The franchise is off to its best start since the last lockout shortened season, where the team started 6-0. But that team didn’t make the playoffs.

The first five games have had a little of everything. Five wins in a week isn’t something you really ever see in the NBA, well, because lockout’s don’t compact seasons like this that often.

The opener was one of those games that was never really in doubt, but one where you couldn’t exactly check completely out of it. The next three were nail-biters: A terrific close in Minnesota, a tough win with fireworks in Memphis and then a buzzer-beater over Dallas. And then a laugher, with the Thunder blistering the Suns.

So with OKC the only team 5-0 in the league, they’re firmly in the top two or three of everyone’s power rankings. And since everyone loves power rankings, or at least everyone loves to click on them and then gripe about the actual rankings, I figured I’d apply the same thing specifically to the Thunder. But with a twist. Here’s a new Monday feature: Thunder Player Power Rankings.

Let’s recap Kevin Durant’s opening week: 30, 33, 32, 30 and then 12 points. A game-winner. At least three assists in every game including two with six. An opening week PER of almost 30. If the season ended today, he’d be the MVP, and it wouldn’t be close. His team is winning and he’s playing incredible basketball. Efficient, confident and he’s added new things to his game.

New Perk equals a good Perk. His Twitter account was a casualty of the opening week, but as long as he’s playing like this, it doesn’t matter. His first five games were All-Defense type of performances. He shut down Dirk late, he absolutely owned Dwight Howard and he held Marc Gasol down against Memphis. Perk has been nothing short of terrific.

Yeah, he needs to start, but he was wonderful in his role anyway this week. I think Harden could average 18-20 a game this season, but if that’s going to happen, he’s got to score more in the second half. Right now, he’s averaging just 6.2 points in the second half of each game. He’s been fantastic in the first half but as the game winds to crunchtime, Harden becomes more of a decoy/distributor, which I’m not a big fan of. He’s too good to be marginalized at any point in the game.

What’s wrong with Russell Westbrook? Here’s your answer: He’s still Russell Westbrook. Hasn’t changed. He’s still the sometimes erratic, emotional but supremely talented point guard that can carry a team or kill it. He’s turning the ball over too much, not scoring well, not shooting well and not distributing well. He’s off to a slow start. But he’s going to be fine. He hasn’t gotten to the rim much this year taking only 4.3 shots a game at the rim so far this season. That’s where Westbrook feasts. Once he gets back to attacking and finishing, the jumper and assists will come. It’s far too small a sample size to really worry. Remember: KD started pretty slow last season and didn’t really come around until late December.

Cook is hitting almost two and a half 3s a game. And not just that, but he knocked down a number of very timely shots. He’s playing just 12.2 minutes a night, but he’s been a major impact player thus far.

Harden should still start, but you can’t deny that Thabo has been pretty good so far. He’s hitting his open shots, playing aggressively and his defense on Rudy Gay in Memphis was really solid. If Sefolosha can continue with this type of play, where he’s actual a mild factor in the offense when he’s on the floor, he’s a big part of OKC winning and not a frustrating player you want to blame everything on.

The first two games weren’t great for Ibaka, but it was more about his minutes than anything else. Against Memphis he had a big block, then against Dallas showed up in a big way, playing his best game so far.

Kind of a quiet week for Maynor. He turned the ball over a little more than usual, didn’t shoot well and didn’t distribute all that well. But that’s just the bar he’s set for himself. As a backup point guard, we expect big things all the time from him.

I thought Aldrich might’ve been setting himself up to potentially crack the Thunder’s rotation, but that was probably a bit optimistic. I firmly believe he’s not going to go the way of Byron Mullens and become a project big man that never found a way to play. He’s got the potential to be an impact defensive player and there’s still a lot of time with him. It’s just his second season.

One thing that bothers me about Jackson: He wears his warmup collar folded down. I don’t know why, but I feel like it looks terrible on the bench. He’s always the first guy up giving fives and stuff, but he needs to work on his bench style. Towel placement, warmup style — all of that stuff. Royal Ivey needs to hold a seminar on it.

He’s only been active for two games but saw time against the Magic. Two things I learned: He’s a better athlete than I thought and his headband is very straightforward. No nonsense with that accessory for Zar.

You can spend your life thumbing through stats until it fits whatever your day dreaming brain wants to believe.

Ball distribution this year is far better. Did you see Perk get that solo break and dunk the other night? Last year he could barely run at all because of his knees. Physically he is all back and playing well. What stands out this year is that we don't have just two guys who can score. Everyone can score. Our passing is much improved.

Offensive stats are about the only ones people pay attention to, but our defense has always been our weakness. It is obviously much improved if you actually go to or watch every game.

I am glad that the trash talking of Westbrook has quieted down. He has shown that he can move the ball around. If anything, he needs to just be Westbrook and take it to the rim like few in the league can.

And the on court/off court numbers seem to tell a similar story, with OKC a net 13.2 points per 100 possession WORSE with Perk on the floor. Defense was better by about 3 points per 100 possessions; while offense is worse by about 16 points per 100 possessions.

Rebounding also seems to really suffer with Perk on the floor. Team Total rebound rate with Perk is 44.2%, without him 49.8%.

Obviously these stats don't tell the whole story (5 games is a small sample size, defense may be underrated), but it sure seems that a lot of people are looking at Perk through kool-aid colored glasses right now. The narrative coming into the season was that the newer slimmer Perk was gonna be awesome and was the final championship piece, Harden was gonna break out, Russ was a villain, etc. Seems that everyone wants to stick with that and where the narrative doesn't fit or the numbers don't back it up, just dump the blame on Russ.

I suppose we aren't lucky enough for this to happen but it'd be amazing if Harden started, as a result we never fell behind by double figures to start each half, and we then ended up just kicking the crap out of them.

Off Topic: It seems everyone following the Russell Westbrook contract (or lack thereof) extension has made two big and odd assumptions. The first is that Presti would have showed up at Russ's door the first available day and dropped a max contract. The second is that Russ's reluctance to sign is about possibly shooting for the new "Rose Rule" and a bigger max. Call me crazy but I just don't see it.

For one, Russ is NOT worth the bigger max. Presti shouldn't (and could he really make an error like that given the market and team he is building?) even offer the bigger max. Moreover, if it was just an issue of waiting for Russ to be eligible, is that even a reason? Couldn't it easily be written into a max contract now that Russ would receive the new rule upgrade should he meet the criteria by the end of the year? Sounds dubious that both Russ and Presti are just sitting around to make a deal later that they could make now.

As such, I am beginning to feel more and more that the reluctance to sign is NOT on Russ's part, but on Presti's. Russ was debatably a max player last year, and has not started strong. Do you think it is possible that Presti is waiting out the season like he did on Green? If Russ blows up, Presti throws the max on the table and everyone wins. If not, maybe we are looking at another haul of players at the trade deadline.

@[censored] Green isn't a perfect comparison because Russ is actually a good player. But if Presti isn't yet sure he wants to offer the max, and Russ will accept nothing less... the writing would still be on the wall. But, like Green, he'll never return more in a trade than the deadline (elsewise the rest of the league will lowball us). It's unlikely we get someone as talented as Russ back, surely (unless Dwight suddenly decides he likes OKC).

But Presti is a very smart guy. He turned Green into something valuable. I doubt he trades Westbrook if there isn't a good deal on the table, but he's also smart enough not to run into a Lebron-Bosh-Melo-CP3-Dwight-Deron situation.

@Tronchaser@kfmsooner@Fezzy I like to remember him that way too. Unfortunately, I also have a bad habit of remembering him airballing three after three, then giving up three straight offensive rebounds on the other end against some mediocre big man or even SG.

@[censored] Well yes, trading him and getting back lower trade-value players is always tricky. If we are making the trade, I would expect it to look more like the latter two trade ideas of yours. The Sixers are still a rebuilding squad, so trading two of their youngest and most talented (assumption on Turner) players doesn't make much sense. But Lowry and Scola? We would almost invariably be closer to a championship in the short term with those two (Scola especially).

@Fezzy@Keith00 I disagree. Green was not a good player, he just got a lot of minutes and seemed good. He was a terrible rebounder and defender, inefficient scorer, too timid on offense, a chucker, didn't get to the line enough...when he went to Boston, he was exposed as well.